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Feb 19, 2022·edited Feb 19, 2022Liked by Rudolph Rigger

It's not just that authoritarians think ---"never let a crisis go to waste" --- it's also ----"let's magnify the crisis to make it seem worse than it is". In some cases it's --- "let's manufacture a crisis." These things are not only used for authoritarians to gain more control so as to deal with 'the situation' but also to increase dependency on authority to control or fix the situation. It is not just individual freedoms that fall victim to the 'solutions'. Common sense and critical thinking can fall by the wayside.

None of it would be possible without control of the flow of information. Whereas once a free press was a watchdog against the excesses of authority and helped to keep authority in check, modern MSM has become a propaganda organ for authoritarianism. It is not just the slant or misinformation that is part of what is reported, it is also what isn't reported that shapes the accepted range of discourse on a topic. Anything that falls outside the accepted paradigm is considered fringe.

So as to maintain the accepted limits of discourse authoritarians call for censorship. MSM having seen their credibility decrease among a large segment of the population supports such censorship of alternative sources rather than decrease it's own censorship. Of course the word 'censorship' is not used. It is prettied up in a 1984ish kind of way with phrases like 'control of misinformation', etc.

People being exposed to alternative views and/or things not reported in MSM is a threat to authoritarianism. It is not only a threat. It is the greatest threat. Unlike Pravda and Tass in the former Soviet Union where consumers of controled media knew it was controled and therefore took what it reported as less than the full story. This 'consumer beware' concept is absent for a large number of people who consume MSM as their only source of being 'informed'.

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Feb 19, 2022Liked by Rudolph Rigger

Still waiting for some black lady with a sign acknowledging "my black privilege = white pain" ("black privilege" not just as in being favored by ur own community as in alleged "white privilege", but even more being treated favorably by other communities ergo whites) - but seems masochism remains a mostly white treat!

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Feb 19, 2022Liked by Rudolph Rigger

To expand a bit on the Cave allegory: The puppeteers casting the shadows on the wall are the Experts™—who have broken free from their chains. But rather than heading towards the light of truth outside the cave, they prefer the comfort of darkness—so long as they control the stories (narratives) displayed upon the wall.

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Just wondering, what would the VGV bell-curves look like for the previous epidemics, with no lockdown? Where the policy was Keep Calm And Carry On (KCACO) ;-) Would there be any noticeable difference in the shape of the curve? Or call it a Spot The Difference competition?

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As far as I can tell these are similar-shaped curves. Proponents of the various NPI's might argue that the peaks were lower and the duration shorter (meaning the areas under the curves were affected by lockdowns etc) - but there's no good evidence that this is so - at least none that I have seen.

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Maybe less curves altogether!? But definitely LOWER curves thereafter as for instance second waves in 2020 were way larger in lockdown countries.

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Nice column as usual. Without actually mentioning it by name you've, I think correctly, demonstrated that those who argue the lock downs were effective (PGP) are violating perhaps the most basic scientific/philisophical doctrine, Occam's razor, which leaves only (VGV).

However, adding a competing entity allows those in power to apply one of their favored methods of aquiring more power, i.e., "never let a good crisis go to waste."

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Excellent article and I'm definitely stealing pantodemic; perfect!

I leave you with Huxwellian in return, save on Twitter characters :)

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It'll keep happening as long as scientists believe in virus theory dogma

https://drsambailey.com/2022/01/05/why-nobody-can-find-a-virus/

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